Nothing Personal
by Images of Broken Light
Summary: A wisp of a faded scent came to him, teasing his senses with the memory of a long-forgotten fragrance. She was the one. She was perfect. She was Chosen. M for violence and language. Complete
1. A Moth Comes

He turned at the sound of the slight muted murmur, worrying his scars with his tongue as he took in the sight. A wisp of a faded scent came to him, teasing his senses with the memory of a long-forgotten fragrance.

Another murmur enticed him into crossing the room; the scent wasn't enough to make him move. As he approached, he could see that she was still out, but she'd come round soon. He hadn't hit her that hard. He had been careful this time.

He chose to sit down and watch her rather than continue to explore the ins and outs of her small apartment. Although, what he had found had interested him. Shelves full of romance novels, small crucifixes in most, if not every room, perfume; everything about that was familiar. The scent, the bottle, even the way it had been placed on the dresser… And no photographs. Not one.

A moth; small, easily forgotten, drifted across the room and landed, somewhat obtrusively, on the arm of the chair that he had tied her to. The moth, insignificant creature that it was, was intruding on a private moment he was sharing with her. He hated it when that happened.

Standing slowly, he reached for his knife in his pocket and gradually began to move toward the chair, gently fingering the blade beneath his worn leather gloves. Then, with a short stab, the Joker skewered the moth on the knife's blade.

Sitting awkwardly in that chair, her arms tied tight behind her back, her head lolled, dirty blonde hair falling across her face. As she groaned, he let go of the knife handle, leaving the blade sticking into the wooden chair arm, and grabbed her jaw, pushing her head back until he could see her eyelids flickering.

There was something about her face that brought small snatches of a past life, a forgotten life, to the forefront of his mind. Random images that flashed bright for a moment then died before he could tell if they were real or purely imaginary; before he could grasp the meaning or the story.

He could tell she was coming round. It was something to do with the expression on her face, something he'd seen before in the faces of others who'd once been in her position.

As her eyes slowly opened, he let go of her jaw, taking a step back and watching as her head lolled back with half-closed eyelids. Then gradually, in a great arc, she rolled her head around until her chin came to rest on her chest. With a sigh, she opened her eyes and lifted her head, an expression of fear on her face that did not quite meet her eyes. They remained calm, solemn and piercing, reminding him of an expression that he could not quite see made by a person who may or may not be a figment of his imagination.

"Why?" She whispered, fear making her voice quiver quite noticeably.

He smiled his macabre grin, showing yellow teeth.


	2. The Lamp Shade Smiles

For most of that day, he busied himself in her apartment, not looking at her, ignoring her constant questions. How they _infuriated_ him! And always the same. Why her, what had she done, what was he going to do; he could just imagine cutting her tongue out of her mouth, if only to shut her up.

At sundown, whatever time that was, he stood at the window, his back to the chair to which she was still tied. She had stopped talking. The sound of silence satisfied him. It was good to hear the tick of the clock, the traffic on the streets below, the noise of the couple in the apartment next door…

The sun was going down slowly, turning the Gotham skyline blood red which faded into blackness.

_Red sky at night, anarchists' delight._

A soft moan from behind him and he turned his head, sucking his teeth as he looked at her. She had to ruin the moment.

He stalked round the chair so she could see him, each step a careful, calculated measure. Instead of stopping in front of her, he continued walking to a lamp sitting on her coffee table. Slowly leaning down, he turned it on, the lamp shade throwing light in strange shapes around the darkening room. He looked up, seeing her watching him.

He let a small smile dance on his lips as he ambled back to the chair. Looking at her face… It made him angry, made him want to hurt her. And hurt her he would. He was going to enjoy it.

Standing just in front of her, he reached for the knife handle that was still pinning the moth to the chair's arm. Drawing the blade out with a slight jerk, he flicked the bug off with the tip of the blade. All the while, she watched his movements in silence.

Then; "What are you going to do to me?" The Joker scowled slightly as she spoke. Why did she have to talk? Her voice; it was grating.

She flicked her dirty hair off her face with a toss of her head. And that, that movement, that action. How he _hated_ it!

His eyes narrowed and he leaned forwards, resting one hand on one arm of the chair. He held the other up to her face, brandishing the blade just in front of her nose. Her face paled instantly, her eyes growing wide as tennis balls as they followed the blade's movements.

"Now, li_st_en to me. Jus_t_ _listen_. You are _not_ going to spea_k_ again. If you do, this will be _the._ Long_est_. Nigh_t_. Of your _insignificant_ life." He paused, examining the expression on her face. "Do I make myself clear?" She nodded furiously, eyed fixed on the knife blade that was glinting in the light given off by the lamp.

Without another word, his hand shot forward and grabbed a handful of her hair. She didn't make a sound. Slowly, he examined his knife and then, in an unjointed, hacking motion, he began to cut her hair, throwing the dirty blonde locks over his shoulder. She sat silently, tears tracing tracks down her pale cheeks.


	3. You Remind Me

Her impromptu haircut took longer than he thought it would. Despite how sharp the blade was, it was difficult to cut though her hair. And, although she remained silent throughout the entire incident, she still had this annoying habit of _flinching_ when he brought the blade close to her head or when he tugged at her hair. And when the blade cut her scalp she tried to jerk her head away, earning her several more 'accidental' injuries. But she _was_ silent. He was pleased with that, if nothing else.

He stood back to admire his work. Her hair was gone; scattered in locks and strands around the floor. Instead, short hair, no longer than an inch at most, stood up on her head that was bloodied by the slips of his knife's blade. She raised her head to look at him, tears still falling, her eyes bloodshot.

He ignored the look on her face, instead walking round the chair to get a better look at his handiwork. Then he saw her hands. Instantly, sounds, sights, smells came back to him, blurring his vision for a moment before he could focus on her hands again. They were familiar, they reminded him…

"Please," a voice whispered, "I have money; you can take anything you like. I won't tell anyone, just please leave me alone." Had she just…? She had just tried to _bargain_ with him. She had thought that _he_, the _Joker_, would be interested in _money_? His lower lip curled in disgust. Not only had she spoken, she had insulted him.

Slowly, he curled his arm around her neck, tightly gripping her jaw. Forcing her mouth open, he grabbed her tongue, gently pulling it. Then he arranged his arms so that her head was in the crook of his arm, her mouth still open, two of his fingers pinching her tongue, pulling it as far out as it would go. Slowly, he lifted the knife until the blade came to rest on her tongue.

He was lucky that the woman next door was a screamer. For once, he didn't mind hearing a couple make as much noise as they were doing…

"I'm _sure_ I told you no_t_ to spea_k_." He whispered as he ran the blade across her tongue, drawing a trail of blood. "In fac_t_,I dis_tinct_ly remember it." She tried to shake her head; he could feel it struggling to move between his arm and his body. "Uh uh," he reprimanded. "I gave you fair warning."

She screamed as the blade bit into her tongue. He ignored her, watching the blade. "You know," he said, barely audible to even himself over her screams, "the firs_t_ time I had sex, I was _three_. Oh, well the first time _consenting_ was thirteen. But, I was three when mommy's _friend_… He was dis_gust_ing, you know. Daddy didn'_t_ know about his visits and mommy's _friend_ swore me to secrecy. He _told_ me that daddy wouldn'_t_ believe me. He said that mommy _wouldn't_ believe me when he did wha_t_ he did to me…"

Dropping the knife, he held up the disgusting pink mass that once was a tongue, examining it in the lamp's friendly glow. "He was the _dickhead_ who gave me the scars, you know," he said bluntly. "He must've had a _fet_ish." He tossed the tongue away and let go of her head. She was making a noise that resembled a scream but could have easily been her sobbing. Blood dripped from the corner of her closed mouth.

He watched the blood with disgust. "_Every_thing about you is a memory. Your han_ds _are jus_t_ like his." She looked up at him with dull eyes. "I know we've never me_t_," he leans down to look her in the eye. "Bu_t_, you know, _this…_ is _nothing_ personal."


	4. Did I Ever Tell You…?

He sat on a sofa and watched her cry. Slowly, the blood dripped from her mouth. It stained her jeans and dribbled down onto the carpet. She didn't seem to notice anymore. She sat there, arms tightly bound, head bowed, eyes closed...

Despite it all, she still looked familiar. The hair was gone. The hands were bound and turning blue from lack of blood flow. Her tongue was just a pick mass on the carpet and her mouth was filled with blood. But still... she was still familiar. There was something about her. He couldn't shake that fact.

She slowly turned her head, a forlorn expression on her face. His eyes narrowed, his mouth forming a taunt line. If she thought he'd have compassion, that he'd pity her, she must be dumber than he thought. Surely she had realised that he wasn't acting on rage, or despair or any other conceivable emotion? Didn't she _hear_ him when he told her it was nothing personal? The Joker may be many things but a liar is not one of them.

He walked over and picked his knife up off the floor, incensed that she could evoke a reaction, any reaction at all, from him. He was not one to let others get to him. And she… God, she reminded him of his fucking mother. That's what he saw. Not that dipshit's hands, nothing to do with the hair. Even the talking was just an annoying trait that had nothing to do with _her_.

Crouching down in front of her, he looked into her eyes, watching her until her nerve broke and she looked away. The second she looked away, he brought the knife blade down on her thigh. She gasped, fresh tears springing to her eyes. Leaning in close to her ear, he smiled as he saw her tremble.

"Did I ev_er_ tell you that _you_ loo_k_ like my mo_ther_?" He rocked back slightly so as to look her in the eye. He gave her a solemn nod and then drew the blade through her thigh, cutting it open to the knee. "She once lef_t_ me in a supermar_ket_." He drew the blade out and examined the slimy coating of blood. "I _swore_ that I'd ne_ver_ feel tha_t_ way again." He smiled as he pointed the blade between her breasts. "No_t _that it's _any_ consolation; _I haven't_."

Then, with a malicious grin, he thrust the blade into her chest. She opened her mouth, uttering unintelligible guttural sounds, her eyes wide with shock and her chest fluttering with the rapid movements of her lungs as she tried to grasp breath. Every time a breath escaped her, blood specks flew out from around the blade, hitting his face and leaving red rivers on his white cheeks.

He slowly drew the blade out of her chest, watching in ecstasy as the blood escaped from her body. Leaning forwards, he grabbed the back of her head and forced it towards him, holding the slippery blade to her neck. Her eyes called to him, crying to be set free. He smiled and the look vanished from her face.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he drew the blade up to her mouth, leaving a trail of blood where he drew the blade across her taunt, white skin. Then, he slipped the blade, warm with her blood, between her lips. She sat unresisting, prepared for the end. Then quickly, viciously, he drew the blade up, cutting the cheek between her mouth and ear in an arc, a gross representation of his own gruesome scars. Without ceremony, he moved the blade across to the other side of her mouth and performed the same action.


	5. A Million Waking Dreams

He left a corpse that morning. No ceremony, nothing to tell to anyone. No one saw him leave anyway. And, if no one noticed her disappearance, the smell in a couple of days would alert the neighbours at the very least. Not that he cared.

No one disturbed him as he strolled from the apartment block, walking down the near-empty street in the early hours of the morning. Only one woman, scuttling along in a jogging suit, saw him but she crossed over to the other side of the street and quickly blew out of the picture.

It wasn't like he was really paying attention anyway. He was thinking about her, remembering the expression on her face as he cut her thigh open, the sound she made when he stabbed her in the chest… He sucked his teeth with a loud pop as he thought about it. It had been a strange night; even by his standards.

He doesn't torture people, well not _physically_ anyway. At least, not normally. Not without provocation. The Joker usually played with the mind. He enjoyed the mind games immensely. Of course, there were some who saw his use of a knife as torturous, but last night was different. Last night was a different type of torture. By anyone's standards.

She was walking out of a supermarket when he saw her the other day. Something, everything, yet maybe nothing about her called to him. She confused him by creating a reaction. He didn't get affected by others; their suffering, their pain, their emotions didn't affect him. They still didn't. But she did something then. But what did it matter to him now? She was a bloody corpse now, slowly rotting 9 stories above the ground.

And another thing; she was no one. He stopped and looked up at the sky scrapers of Gotham as they caught the first rays of light. She was different to them all; she didn't matter. _They_ say what they want, but the Joker didn't kill part of the nameless crowd unless their death would be… what was the word…? Symbolic? He shrugged to himself as he turned a corner. Symbolic was good enough.

Or revenge. Revenge was a good enough reason. Not that he ever needed a reason. _No_, no reason necessary. Harvey understood that. No reason, no plans, no organisation in chaos. Just him revelling in the anarchy. Just him. Always just him. And sometime the Bat _will_ cross over.

Despite it all, he enjoyed revisiting her final moments. He knew she would die. From the moment he saw her, he knew he had to destroy her. It was nothing symbolic; there was no revenge, no plan, no emotions getting in the way. It was instinct. At times like this he knew Darwin was right. She was the Chosen to die; or so his instincts insisted. And his instincts were never wrong.

For a short moment, he enjoyed the memory of plunging his knife into her chest, the sensation of warm blood running down his face. The memory engulfed him, brought him back to that moment in time as he relived it again. He saw her eyes again. She understood. There was understanding behind the pain and terror. She knew why he had to take her life in his hands. And she understood his stories, fictional or not. She knew, but it wasn't easy being the Chosen.


End file.
